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Inside Politics: Obama's NSA shake-up

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President Barack Obama is proposing to end NSA bulk collection of phone records

It would require a court order to obtain phone records of individual Americans

Peter Bergen: Government would still be able to do legitimate terrorism investigations

He cites study by New America Foundation that found phone records were of minimal use

The Obama administration is proposing to scrap the NSA's bulk collection of all Americans' phone call records.

The administration's proposal is eminently sensible. It eliminates the government collecting five years of every Americans' phone records and instead mandates that U.S. phone companies themselves keep those records for only the 18 months that they are required to do so by federal regulations.

And most importantly, it proposes that a court order would be necessary to obtain the phone records of individual Americans. This ensures that there is some kind of judicial review before the government can get hold of any American's phone records, rather than leaving this up to the judgment of a small group of anonymous officials at the National Security Agency.

This proposed fix to the system hardly seems onerous. After all, since 1979, judges have only turned down 0.3% of the requests they have received for warrants involving cases of suspected espionage or terrorism.

Such a move would, however, assure Americans that there was some sort of due process going on whenever their phone records are examined by the government. This is closer to the spirit of the Fourth Amendment, which guards against "unreasonable searches," than does the present system in which the NSA sucks up vast amounts of phone record information.

The Obama administration proposal is particularly welcome in light of a New America Foundation study published in January. The study looked at the government's claims about the role that NSA "bulk" surveillance of phone records had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism and found that these claims were overblown.

An in-depth analysis was conducted of 225 individuals recruited by al Qaeda or a like-minded group, or inspired by al Qaeda ideology and charged in the United States with an act of terrorism since 9/11. The analysis demonstrated that traditional investigative methods -- such as the use of informants, tips from local communities and targeted intelligence operations -- provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases while the contribution of NSA's bulk surveillance of phone records to these cases was minimal.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden – National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden poses with German Green party parliamentarian Hans-Christian Stroebele in Moscow on October 31. Stroebele returned from the meeting with a letter from Snowden to German authorities, which was distributed to the media. In it, Snowden said he is confident that with international support, the United States would abandon its efforts to "treat dissent as defection" and "criminalize political speech with felony charges."

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Snowden's refugee document granted by Russia is seen during a news conference in Moscow on August 1. Snowden slipped quietly out of the airport after securing temporary asylum in Russia, ending more than a month in limbo.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, leaves a last-minute news conference at the U.S. Capitol after Russia announced that it would grant Snowden temporary asylum on August 1. "Russia has stabbed us in the back, and each day that Mr. Snowden is allowed to roam free is another twist of the knife," he said.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Snowden's father, Lon Snowden, who has adamantly supported his son, talks to reporters in Washington on Tuesday, July 30. He has urged his son to remain in Russia "until we have assurances that he would receive a fair trial."

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Demonstrators in Berlin hold a protest march on Saturday, July 27, in support of Snowden and WikiLeaks document provider Bradley Manning. Both men have been portrayed as traitors and whistle-blowers. Manning was acquitted on July 30 on the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, but he was convicted on several other counts and likely faces a lengthy term in a military prison.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, center, speaks with journalists at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow after meeting with Snowden on Wednesday, July 24. Kucherena said he was in daily contact with Russian authorities about securing permission for Snowden to leave the airport.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Snowden meets with human rights activists and lawyers on July 12 in a transit zone of the Russian airport. It was his first public appearance since he left Hong Kong on June 23. He announced that he was seeking refuge Russia while awaiting safe passage to Latin America, where he has been offered asylum.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in Prokhorovka on July 12. Russian officials said Snowden abandoned his effort to seek asylum in the country after Putin warned that he would have to stop leaking information about U.S. surveillance programs if he wanted to stay.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – A woman burns American flags during a protest in support of Bolivian President Evo Morales in front of the U.S. embassy in Mexico City on July 4. Leftist Latin American leaders and activists were fuming after some European nations temporarily refused Morales' plane access to their airspace amid suspicions Snowden was aboard.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Bolivian President Evo Morales holds a news conference at the Vienna International Airport on July 3. He angrily denied any wrongdoing after his plane was diverted to Vienna and said that Bolivia is willing to give asylum to Snowden, as "fair protest" after four European countries restricted his plane from flying back from Moscow to La Paz.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Umbrellas with slogans are lined up before a protest march to the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong on June 15. Snowden was hiding in Hong Kong, where he arrived on May 20 before blowing the lid off the NSA surveillance operation.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Protesters in Hong Kong shout slogans in support of Snowden on June 13. The NSA leaker vowed to fight any bid to extradite him from Hong Kong.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Graffiti sympathetic to Snowden is stenciled on the sidewalk in San Francisco on June 11.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – An American flag flutters in front of the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong on June 10.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden – Snowden outs himself on June 9 in the British newspaper The Guardian, which published details of his revelations about the NSA electronic surveillance programs. "I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong," he said in a video interview.

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EXPAND GALLERY

So what has been the impact of NSA data collection?

The bulk collection of American telephone metadata -- which includes the telephone numbers that originate and receive calls as well as the time of those calls but not their content (under Section 215 of the Patriot Act) -- appeared to have played an identifiable role in, at most, 1.8% of these cases.

This finding corroborated that of the Obama-appointed White House review group, which had access to classified materials. That group concluded in December that "section 215 telephony metadata was not essential to preventing attacks."

Furthermore, our examination of the role of the database of U.S. citizens' telephone metadata in the single plot the government used to justify the importance of the program -- that of Basaaly Moalin, a San Diego cabdriver who in 2007 and 2008 provided $8,500 to Al-Shabaab, al Qaeda's affiliate in Somalia -- calls into question the necessity of the Section 215 bulk collection program.

According to the government, the database of American phone metadata allows intelligence authorities to quickly circumvent the traditional burden of proof associated with criminal warrants, thus allowing them to "connect the dots" faster and prevent 9/11-scale attacks. Yet in the Moalin case, after using the NSA's phone database to link a number in Somalia to Moalin, the FBI waited two months to begin an investigation and wiretap his phone.

This finding undercut the government's theory that the NSA database of Americans' telephone metadata was necessary to expedite the investigative process, since it clearly didn't expedite the process in the single case the government used to extol its virtues.

The New America Foundation study concluded the surveillance of American phone metadata had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism and only the most marginal of impacts on preventing terrorist-related activity, such as fundraising for a terrorist group.

That's why the new Obama proposal to end the NSA sucking up of the phone records of Americans going back half a decade is especially welcome.